On The “Autrebiographical Writing” Of Coetzee’s Summertime

J. M. Coetzee, a distinguished contemporary South African novelist who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 2003, deals with varied themes and writes constantly with different styles. In his novel Summertime(2009), he creates a new style---“autrebiographical writing” to demonstrate the life of the hero John Coetzee in the 1970 s, attracting widespread concern in academia. However, few critics study Summertime from the perspective of autrebiography. This thesis, with focus on the analysis of Coetzee’s work Summertime, explores systematically Coetzee’s novel concept of “Autrebiographical Writing”. It presents the concept of autrebiography, the causes and features of autrebiograhical writing, and the ethical reference as well.This thesis maintains that Coetzee, breaking the traditional pattern of autobiography writing, has created his own concept of “autrebiography”. The uniqueness of Coetzee’s “autrebiography” is fully embodied in its experimental writing. By combining fiction and reality, he probes into the real meaning of truth; through multiple-perspective narrative, he obscures the identity of the biographer to present a more objective self; through creative forms such as blank or collage, he calls for the reader’s participation in the construction of the Coetzee image. In this special design, he fully exhibits his concept of “autrebiographical writing”. By taking a third-person narrative perspective, changing tenses, fragmented description and a variety of novel techniques, Coetzee takes the past self as an object to study, showing a rethink of the truth, an objective examination of the self, and a profound exposure of the South African society.